What Matters Most

by Luanne Rice

  And then, when her father was released from prison and finally came home, it all came flooding back in one tidal wave of memory: the rain, the blood, the shouting, and that final thudding impact. Regis’s family had flown over to Dublin with her so she could tell her side of the story. Tom Kelly’s cousin Sixtus had represented her, and the Irish authorities had said there would be no charges filed.

  All that, and now it was supposed to be back to school as usual. At least the nightmares were gone. Instead, Regis would just lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, exploring the strange new world of insomnia.

  Sometimes she’d glance over, and there would be Mirande, wide-awake, drawing in her sketchpad. With two artists for parents, Regis had felt comforted by the sound of charcoal whisking across paper. Of all her roommates, she felt the strongest kinship with Mirande. Her name, for one thing. It was so cool—she was named for the beach on which she’d been conceived, a hidden cove with a crescent of sand, on a visit to her father’s family on the Côte d’Azur.

  Mirande wore a beret at all times, even when she went to bed. She had long chestnut hair, pale skin, and a Mona Lisa smile. She wore many bracelets: several woven by her mother of brilliant, jewel-colored embroidery thread, and two made of green glass beads from her American aunt, who had had them blessed by the Dalai Lama before she died. Her favorite purse was amber wool stitched with turquoise yarn, from her other aunt, who lived in Aix-en-Provence. She always wore a small gold cross around her neck, from her grandmother in St. Paul de Vence.

  Regis loved Mirande for her artistic nature, her eccentricities, and her closeness to her family. It made her feel she had a true friend, someone who would understand. Irish on her mother’s side of the family, Mirande was proud that her middle name was Grace, after the fearless Irish pirate Grace O’Malley. Regis—a little shell-shocked since the summer—needed to find her fearlessness again, so she stuck close to Mirande.

  “We need a road trip,” Mirande announced on Friday afternoon, when they were all in the room studying.

  “You could all come home with me,” Regis said. “It’s the grape harvest at Star of the Sea, and I said I’d help.”

  “Honey, you’re going home an awful lot,” Monica said, leaning down from her upper bunk bed.

  “She needs her family right now,” Mirande said, sliding her arm around Regis’s shoulder.

  “I know, I know,” Monica said. “I just miss her when she’s gone.”

  “Then come to the harvest,” Regis urged.

  “I’d like to,” Juliana said.

  “Sounds good,” Monica agreed. “I went to Catholic boarding school, and the one thing we lacked was a vineyard. It would be cool to see.”

  “All right,” Mirande said, her beret dangerously low over one eye. “But I say we take a little excursion on the way.”

  “Where to?” Monica asked.

  “The land of sailors, pirates, robber barons, domestics, Rolls-Royces, and debauchery—my hometown, Newport, Rhode Island!”

  “Color me there,” Juliana said.

  “What are we waiting for?” Regis asked.

  Traveling light, they packed overnight bags and jumped into Mirande’s car. It was her mother’s old Volvo station wagon and had Buddha beads, crosses, and a lei of blue, pink, and yellow flowers hanging from the rearview mirror. They left Chestnut Hill driving south on I-95, then got off the highway in Providence to meander down Narragansett Bay through Barrington, Bristol, and Portsmouth. The foliage was turning, so Regis just sat back and let the fall colors—oranges, yellows, reds, and nut browns—soothe her soul. When they reached Newport, they went straight to Mirande’s house, located in the Fifth Ward, two streets back from the bay.

  “The bus tours don’t come through this section,” Mirande explained. “It’s for the working class, and it’s mainly Irish.”

  “I like it,” Regis said, looking up and down the street. The houses were tidy and well kept, with pumpkins on the steps and chrysanthemums blooming in the yards. She thought of how Tom Kelly always said that Irish people were natural gardeners. She’d been devastated to hear that he’d left Star of the Sea, and she couldn’t quite imagine the harvest without him.

  “How long are you staying?” Mrs. St. Florent asked, surprised and happy to see the girls. She’d been at her loom, making a tapestry for a monastery in Vermont, but she put her work aside to serve them cider and doughnuts.

  “Till tomorrow morning. Then we’re going to Regis’s place to pick grapes.”

  “Oh yes,” Mrs. St. Florent said. “The Sisters do make some delicious wines….”

  “I’m sorry to subject your daughter to backbreaking work,” Regis said. “But I promise we’ll send you a few bottles of chardonnay to make up for it.”

  “Her father and I thank you in advance!” Mrs. St. Florent said. “I just hope you’ll be able to see Elizabeth before you leave. She’ll be beside herself if she misses you again, Mirande.”

  “Is she still working at Oakhurst?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. St. Florent said. “Although she’s living with Jeff now, instead of up in that cold attic with the other girls, and counting the days until the family leaves for Palm Beach.”

  “We’ll go see her,” Mirande promised.

  So the girls all got back into the Volvo and drove up to Spring Street on their way to see Mirande’s older sister. Graceful Victorians with gingerbread, peaked roofs, and wraparound porches were crammed side by side in a sort of summer-resort urban madness. From there, they headed up to Bellevue Avenue, where every house was a mansion. Driving along Bellevue, Regis was awed by one limestone palace after another. Many had iron gates, spectacular stone walls, perfect hedges.

  “A lot of us work up here at least once in our lives,” Mirande explained. “My sister dropped out of Villanova last year, and came back to Newport to be closer to her boyfriend.”

  “What does she do?” Regis asked.

  “She’s the downstairs maid for a really snobby family. Answers their door in a black uniform…”

  Suddenly they reached a relatively normal-looking house. Although still quite large, it was white clapboard instead of limestone, and had black shutters, a screened-in porch, and a tall oak tree towering in the backyard. A silver Porsche was parked in the driveway behind a silver Rolls-Royce.

  “Welcome to Oakhurst,” Mirande said. “Looks like the family is home, so we shouldn’t all go to the door. I’ll just run up and say hi to my sister, okay?”

  Regis watched as her friend jumped out of the Volvo, hurried up the bluestone walk to the front door. Mirande rang the bell and stood there waiting. Monica and Juliana sat in the station wagon’s back seat, watching. Craning her neck, Regis looked up at the house. There were tall floor-to-ceiling windows on the first floor, normal-sized eight-paned windows on the second, and small little squares up in the attic. As she stared up, she saw a face peek out.

  There, in one of the tiny attic windows, Regis saw a young woman staring at the sky. She looked so forlorn and desperate, so full of yearning, the sight of her almost brought tears to Regis’s eyes. Regis had known that feeling. During the last six years, when she was struggling with her dark secrets, she had felt that way all the time.

  Downstairs, the front door opened, and another young woman answered the door. It was Mirande’s sister Elizabeth, wearing a black dress with a white apron. She grinned, waving out the door at the girls. They waved back, but Regis’s attention was drawn again to the woman in the window upstairs.

  Two minutes later, Mirande was back, her black beret raking her green eyes.

  “She gets off at six,” she said. “She and Jeff are going to meet us at the Black Pearl for dinner.”

  “Mirande, who’s that?” Regis asked, pointing up at the attic window. In that instant, the girl standing there locked eyes with Regis, then backed slightly away, into the room, leaving just a shadow.

  “Must be one of the other help,” Mirande said. “The English nanny, maybe, although I t
hink Beth said she’s gone back to New York City. Could be the Irish girl.”

  “The Irish girl?”

  “Yes,” Mirande said. “The cook and upstairs maid. She’s leaving with the family on Sunday. They head south for the winter, to Palm Beach. Not my sister, though. She’s staying in Newport, and she’ll start up at Salve Regina next semester.”

  “That’s good,” Juliana said.

  “Better than answering a door all day long!” Monica said.

  The other girls started talking about the worst jobs they’d ever had, but even as Mirande backed out of the driveway, Regis couldn’t stop staring up at the attic window. As the Volvo pulled into Bellevue Avenue, Mirande slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a green pickup truck that was moving slowly along.

  “Whoa, watch it,” Mirande said.

  Regis glanced at the truck. It was old and a little battered, as if it had been used for heavy work. Landscaping, maybe, to judge from the dents along the sides of the truck bed, and from the rack used to store rakes, shovels, and hoes. There were bits of concrete stuck to the mud flaps, and a few dead leaves wedged in the gate.

  The truck’s driver seemed oblivious to the fact he’d nearly gotten hit by the Volvo. He was too intent, staring upward, his gaze directed not at the sky but at a window at the top of the white house with black shutters. The man was staring up at the girl in the attic window. He looked completely absorbed and—in the two seconds Regis had to register his eyes, his mouth—heartbroken. Regis knew heartbreak when she saw it.

  Especially when it was on the face of Tom Kelly.

  Kathleen stood at the window, trying to hold herself together. She’d never been so sick in her life, and the idea of having to finish packing tonight, so they could drive to New York tomorrow night, get on a plane on Sunday, and fly to Palm Beach, made her feel like jumping off the roof right this instant. She was ill at the very idea of transplanting herself from one grand house to another, knowing it would be just the same wherever she went.

  Although she’d only been with the Wellses since last spring, she had done the circuit with other families before. East Hampton in the summer, Boca Raton in the winter. Or Edgartown and Man-O-War Key. Or Northeast Harbor and Naples. The houses were all enormous, the estates pristine. Have Rolls-Royce, Will Travel.

  Staring out the window, Kathleen saw a carload of girls pull into the driveway. The glass blocked their voices, but she could see them all laughing and talking. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to go running downstairs, jump into the back seat, and drive away with them. What would the Wellses have to say about that? Considering everything, they might be happiest if she were to disappear right now. In fact, she was working on a plan to accomplish just that.

  One of the girls, a young beauty with a jaunty black beret cocked over one eye, came running across the yard, tripping up the front steps. The sight of her made Kathleen smile. Not a usual visitor to Oakhurst, that was for sure…She recognized her as Beth’s sister…what was her name? Something odd, something that had reminded Kathleen of the beach.

  Beth had kept her picture on her bureau, before she’d left for the greener pastures of moving in with her boyfriend. Kathleen had loved the story of how her little sister never took off her beret; it had been her aunt’s last gift to her, the Christmas before she died. Although the aunt was American and lived right here in Newport, she had given her niece a beret, knowing her love of all things Gallic. The aunt had understood her niece, and Kathleen knew that understanding was a gift beyond measure.

  The story of Beth’s sister and the beret had pierced Kathleen to the soul. Oh, she understood the power of talismans, the need to hold someone close at all costs. When they were right there, by your side and holding your hand, it wasn’t so dire. But once they were gone—through death, or separation, or running away on the hard-packed sand of an Irish beach—then you needed all the talismans you could find.

  Kathleen wished she’d had something of James to hold on to. The most she had had was that red-haired doll. She’d kept it with her all the years at St. Augustine’s, and even her first few months with her real parents. She didn’t care that she was almost fourteen, too big to need a doll. Her father had teased her about it, hidden it on her a few times.

  He’d laughed when she’d panicked. She had tried to pretend she wasn’t really falling apart just because she couldn’t find her ragged, soiled, hugged-to-death redheaded baby doll. She’d thought that if she pretended she didn’t really care, then he’d stop hiding it on her.

  Then one day, after they’d moved from Blackrock to Cork City, the day before they would make the score necessary to finance their flight to Boston, she had torn the apartment up, looking for the doll.

  “Where is he?” she’d asked, thinking maybe she was losing her mind.

  “‘He’?” her father had asked, in that leering way of his. “It’s a doll. A girl doll.”

  “Leave her alone,” her mother had said, seemingly weary of it all.

  “She, then,” Kathleen had said, not wanting to argue or try to convince them. She had already learned that to survive, she was better off going along, not fighting back or trying to assert herself.

  “Leave her alone?” her father had bellowed, going after her mother. “Who the eff are you to tell me to leave her alone? This was your idea, getting her out of the Home. Another mouth to feed, to drag along, and what does she do to pull her weight? Whines about a goddamn doll—knowing the pressure I’m under!”

  “You’re right, Clement,” her mother had said swiftly, trying to head him off before it got too bad. “We both know the stress you’re dealing with, trying to get the money for the trip, and making arrangements on the other side…we do know, don’t we, Kathleen?”

  “Yes,” she’d said, trying to keep her chin from wobbling, trying to contain her anxiety. Not over the trip to America, or even the fact she knew her parents were planning to go to the hotel bar later, get some rich man drunk so they could steal his wallet—his cash and credit cards. But just the simple fact that her father had her doll, and she needed it. Needed it to remind her of James, know that he was always with her. Always, always.

  “This goddamned stinking, lice-infested, ugly doll,” her father had raged, pulling it down from the closet shelf, too high for Kathleen to have reached on her own. She’d held herself back, knowing that if she reached for it or looked too eager, her father would just hide it again, maybe not give it back until they’d flown to Boston. And she needed him, her doll….

  She didn’t like knowing her parents were thieves; they sometimes took her to the bars, to laugh and dance, distract people from paying attention to their wallets or briefcases or handbags. Sometimes she’d wondered if that’s why they had gotten her out of St. Augustine’s: so she could help them steal. She got by, thinking of James. That’s what she’d tell herself: Just think of James. He was there with her, telling her she’d be fine. They’d be back together as soon as they could. Her red-haired doll was the reminder she needed, every day, that James was by her side, with her always.

  That’s why Kathleen loved Beth’s little sister, in her black beret. She leaned against the windowpane, looking up into the sky, as if she could see all the way to Ireland. She knew that one day Beth’s sister would learn that objects didn’t matter. They couldn’t save you, no matter how much you wished they could. Her father had burned her doll that day. Told her that it was filthy, and distracting her from doing a good job. Oh, that fire had never stopped burning. It had raged all around her all these years.

  But Kathleen had survived, learned to live without the doll. She pictured the day she finally got it, finally had had enough of her parents. The sky was blue. The breeze was blowing. Kathleen packed the few things that mattered and started walking. She remembered wondering when they would notice she was gone. She knew they would be upset, but for all the wrong reasons: reasons that had nothing to do with love.

  Kathleen knew that Beth’s little sister could get by w
ithout her beret; she just hoped it wouldn’t be before she was ready. Glancing down at the car, she noticed one of the other girls staring up. Their eyes locked—and Kathleen jumped back.

  She felt ashamed to be seen. Up here in the attic, too sick to work, needing to finish packing. Tomorrow night, they would all drive to New York, to drop things off at the Fifth Avenue apartment, before flying out on Sunday to sunny Palm Beach—unless Kathleen could get the energy to come up with a plan.

  Nice college girls, she thought. Nothing like this would ever happen to them. She prayed it wouldn’t, at least. As she watched the Volvo backing onto Bellevue Avenue, she saw it nearly collide with a green truck. She banged on the window, opening her mouth to yell for them to watch out.

  But her voice caught in her throat. Only the tiniest sound came out….

  “James,” she whispered.

  God help her, she saw him. Her beloved, the boy who had promised to be with her always. There he was, at the wheel of a green pickup truck. Blue eyes blazing as he stared up at her, that gaze as strong as a lifeline, promising without words to save her, rescue her from the fire.

  “James,” she said again, hand on the cold window glass.

  The man saw her, thought she was waving at him. He raised his hand, as if to steady her, tell her to wait, that he’d come back and get her. She watched his green truck pull out of sight, and oh, she thought her heart would break to see it go.

  She knew she was losing her mind, had finally gone mad. That had to be it. That man was a stranger—and old, besides. He had to be twice James’s age, forty-five if he was a day. His hair was dark brown, going gray, not a bit of red to be seen. But those blue eyes…those clear blue eyes. Perhaps he was a spirit. Kathleen was having visions now, losing her mind in the attic, carrying the child of a fool.

  Leaning her forehead against the window, she stared down the street, praying, as she always did, to see those blue eyes again. But the prayer caught in her throat. It was too late.